Talk about useless information… (Hopefully my British compadres can help me out here.)
My family and I love tea with honey and have a cup almost nightly. My question is, how do I know when the teabag is done steeping, when I’ve got all the tea I’m going to get out of the leaves? Where is the line when the bag becomes usless? Is there a timeline for teabag effectiveness? These are questions of great eternal importance, ya know.
Secondly, we’ve been drinking the standard black tea and sometimes green tea. I wonder if there’s a difference in teas like Harper “claims” exists between rootbeers.
It’s a pretty silly set of questions so I’ll just sign my name,
Anonymous
Salada (a tea making company) says not to let it steep for more than 5 minutes. I have, on occasion, forgot I made the tea, and reheated it after steeping for well over 30 mins…still tasted the same.
I don’t think they use tea bags. I think you may have insulted them. When they wake up and read this, you are going to be in big trouble. Good thing you didn’t sign your name.
Wow, Bruce, unemployment is really taking its toll on you. Let’s take up a donation so the Edwards family doesn’t have to share one cup of tea. It would be nice if they could each have their own cup of tea every night.
I have a friend from India who only drinks coffee in the US. This is because he is a tea snob. He brought us back some Darjeeling tea when he went to Calcutta once. There was clearly a difference between what we were accustomed to and the delightful brew he gave us.
I steep tea until it tastes good. Is there some other way?
Tea is better than Coffee and it comes in more flavors.i drink Tea exclusively…
i give it a hot steep for 5 minutes then take the bag out.half a cup later i fill it to the top with the bag in with very hot water.this is where the leaves end…2 cups max on 1 bag
it’s a good thing u mentioned a ‘line’ in there bruce as your question is right up there with the eternal query regarding the length of the aforementioned piece of string
i have met people on both sides of the steeping divide,
from the lady in my life (a welsh lass) who drinks what can only be described as ‘making love in a canoe tea’, hardly allowing the bag to get wet, to some friends of mine who actually leave the bag in the cup untill they’ve finished drinking their tea
a couple of important pointers tho
the water must be boiling as it hits the bag
if u make the tea in a cup (as opposed to a tea-pot, the other thing they should’ve sent over with the settlers - along with the dictionary!), u should really bring the water to the boil and fill the cup with water to heat up the cup
leave it in for about a minute or so and then bring the water to the boil again
just before it boils, empty the cup of the now lukewarm water and add the now boiling water to the tea bag
u should not pour in the milk after the water because u run the risk of scalding the milk
u guessed it, we’re back to the importance of the teapot again
don’t hold out any hope of any of our british compatriots helping u with the question of ‘how long should the bag stay in’ as they would use loose tea leaves only
it is sooo much better
by the way, do u hang the bathmat over the edge of the bath after your bath?
I use teabags too, but when I finish the teabag it’s either goes in the bin or on the garden as a mulch. It must be cold only to put on the garden. And I do have tea leaves if i’m out of teabags or whatever. I love Dilmar tea because it taste better. And I do love a good cuppa too. I usally have it for breakfast but now and then I might have it at lunch-time and Afternoon-tea. Right now I’m having Bushell’s Tea (Australian Brand) And I use to live near the Bushell’s Tea Factory in Sydney NSW and I love the smell of coffee or tea out of the factory. I use a teapot and a tea cosy to keep the teapot warm. I also love the taste of Billy-tea out of the outback teapot. Very nice indeed. I love my tea too.
Wow, looks like I have a long way to go, a lot to learn, and much to experience in the world of tea and tea lovers. I’m almost ashamed to offer my tea brewing procedure…but here goes.
(for the tea connoiseur, remove the children from the room, shield your eyes, run away and hide!)
I use filtered water from the fridge door, fill the cup, dump in the honey, throw in the teabag (basic teabags from Aldi, a bargin grocery store) and nuke it for 3 minutes, 18 seconds.
I think I’m going to have to try using tea leaves. I bet the store where I bought the Marmite would have some great stuff.
If by “green tea” you mean Japanese green tea; yes, there is a difference that’s vastly broader than the differences between root beers.
Green tea comes in different grades and forms (powdered, loose-leaf, tea bagged), but usually only sen cha and ban cha come in tea bags. Sen cha is the higher grade of the two. All of the black teas and green teas come from the leaves and leaf buds of the same plant, Camellia sinensis.
The leaves are allowed to ferment before they’re dried to make black tea; to make green tea, the leaves are lightly steamed and then dried.
Water for green tea should not be boiling, but slightly cooler. If the water is too hot, it will scald the tea and make it bitter. Tea bags should only be steeped for about two minutes. Served hot, green leaf or bag tea should never be sweetened or adulterated with honey or sugar or Sweet 'n Low, and milk should never be added, either. Powdered green tea, ma cha, is sometimes mixed with powdered sugar for a very refreshing summer drink, however.
Ma cha is the original Zen tea, and a completely different experience from all other teas, but it’s not cheap. If you plan on coming to Japan for the next UNICON, you should try ma cha. It’s probably hard to find in the US outside of Little Tokyo.
The Way of Tea is a good reference site to start out from on your quest for tea perfection.
Thanks for the input. What would be your recommendations and remember that I’m a uncivilized, commoner, a backwoods American country boy. You put tea leaves in the cup whole? Or crushed? And what is a gum tree leaf and what does it do to the taste and smell? Where do you find them?
As for your comment on being a commoner? In australia, tea is the drink of choice for the masses, from the lowest plebiscites such as myself to the middle classes…
We all love our tea (well, maybe the pompous rich pricks dont, but hey…) and like it from a pot…a cup of billy tea is as australian as a massacre of indigenous australians on a sunny christmas afternoon…(sorry for being politicaly incorrect)…
A gum tree leaf is found in Australia and South Africa. They taste and smell like … gum tree - they are everywhere in australia (well, not everywhere, but a lot of them are on the east coast)…
Goto a store, buy some tea … drop it in a pot, pour boiling water over it, spin the pot around and around to make all the leaves go into the middle then pour (the leaves in the middle of the pot means you dont get as many in the cup)…
then sit back and enjoy.
it is sooooo much better than teabags.
Also, if you insist on using teabags, dont nuke it. tea leaves need to have boiling water poured on them for best results and flavour. Don’t warm up the water slowly… boil some in a jug and pour it into the cup.
And buy some good qaulity tea to put in the pot … I dont know whats on offer in the US - maybe some Dilmah? or tetly? or maybe, just maybe even some Bushells.
Why be a tea snob?
You will get the pleasure of fine teas from around the world
It is reasonably cheap and healthy
Best of all, you can strike back when someone have spent the entire time at dinner boring you with details about the wine.
The first step to become a tea snob is to get your tea in a store that specializes in tea. They’ll tell you exactly how long the tea you buy has to seep.
NEVER let tea seep to long or it will turn bitter and utterly unsuitable for a tea snob.
I’m with Samuel. I like mine in a pot too. With a tea cozy of cause.
When I was Collecting old computers off the recently Council clean-up week. I had to go home and put on my kettle for a nice cup of tea. I was tired collecting old 486 Computers and of cause Pentiums. A nice pot is the best part of it. Bushells & Billy Tea Brands is also my favorite besides Dilmah. And yes, I don’t mind Tea leaves too, got more taste than Tea bags I reckon.
